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Friday, August 30, 2013

#blogElul 24: end

How do people write memoirs?
People keep suggesting that I write a book about our experiences.
I keep telling them that I can't write the book until I know how the story ends.

I can be very goal-oriented.
It took me a long time to understand that sometimes it's just about the process.
Sometimes the doing and the being and the living are enough....

The wise Brene Brown said that if we OWN the story, we get to write the ending.

But what about stories that are being written for us?
What about the endings that are unclear...blurry...far away?

The year has a definite end. As Rosh HaShanah comes in, we know that the book is closed on the year. No way to re-open it and rewrite it. We lived it, we move forward.

If only the rest of life were so simple....

The Jewish month of Elul, which precedes the High Holy Days, is
traditionally a time of renewal and reflection. It offers a chance for
spiritual preparation for the Days of Awe. It is traditional to begin
one’s preparation for the High Holy Days during this month with the
Selichot, the prayers of forgiveness. We look to begin the year with a
clean slate, starting anew, refreshed. All month, along with others,
I'll be blogging a thought or two for each day to help with the month of
preparation... I will be blogging here, and sharing #Elulgram photos on
the same themes at imabima.tumblr.com.
Follow me on twitter @imabima for all the #BlogElul posts, not only
mine but others' as well! This year, I'm not doing a linky or anything
like that -- I'm conserving energy! So be sure to tag your posts on
Twitter and Facebook so I can catch them with my alerts....

1 comment:

For the past couple of years, it has been particularly meaningful to me that in Jewish time the year ends and begins in the dark of a new moon. The dark is a nuanced place. On the one hand, it's often where the monsters come out. On the other, it's also where freedom often happens. It's cozy and inimate. It's vast and can be scary. It's finite, it ends at the place we can't see anymore. It's infinite, it has no actual end. My memoir challenge is writing it feels like reliving it. I had a hard enough time living it the first time. I'm not sure that I want to do it again, even in words. On the other hand, if I felt the story had enough to bring to the world - maybe. I joke that if I could write the Eat, Pray, Love of BMT - raise that kind of awareness . . . but it's only kind of a joke. And anyway, if I wrote another book, it would end in that it would stop, but it wouldn't only be my story . . . because like the Torah, I'm not so sure that a book with a beginning and an end is really the way to write a life. Love you.

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What's an Ima? What's a Bima?

Ima is Hebrew for "mom."Bima is the platform from which a Jewish prayer service is led. Rabbis typically stand on the bima to lead services.I'm a rabbi and mama...sometimes I'm up on the bima and sometimes I'm not...(Want to email me? imabima (at) gmail.com)Want to hear the other guy's perspective? Check out my husband, the Abba Sababa.